


Unattainable

by Rhaella



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-25
Updated: 2008-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaella/pseuds/Rhaella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is still his sister, even if there is no end in sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unattainable

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://springkink.livejournal.com/profile)[**springkink**](http://springkink.livejournal.com/). _Prompt: Firefly, River/Simon: Empathic bond - I wanted you to be everything to me._

River sleeps.

Her hair is spread out around her: clean, neat, shining like a halo out of the Shepherd’s Bible. Her face is peaceful at the moment, untouched by the madness that lies just beneath the surface, and Simon cannot make himself look away. She seems so much like a normal, untroubled teenage girl that it’s almost physically painful. Watching her now, he can somehow pretend that the last few years never happened at all, that at any moment, she’ll wake up and look at him the same way she did a lifetime ago, and—

Simon sighs. He shuts down that train of thought before it gets to a place he’s not ready to visit. Moving closer, he reaches out, absently adjusting the blanket around his sister shoulders. Every gesture counts.

 _I chose this_ , he reminds himself. _I have no regrets_. And it’s nothing less – nothing _more_ – than the truth. He could have chosen no other path; there is nothing in the universe that is more important to him than his sister, even if—

Even if.

Simon wanders over to the far side of the small room, his attention focused on a mental list of the various treatments he has and hasn’t yet tried. They’re easy enough to keep track of; he has already run through every traditional method and begun to get more innovative. Something will have to work, he concludes, even though he’s quickly running out of possibilities.

( _“Do you really think that all the answers are here?” River had once asked, long ago, her voice curious and far older than it should have been. Her hair half obscuring her face, she had been busily leafing through the pages of one of his medical books._

 _A gift, he would later recall, from their father._

 _River had closed the book and shaken her head, amused and yet slightly condescending. From anyone else, Simon would have hated the tone. From River, it was normal. It was almost endearing. “They’re not, you know,” she had informed him. “Half of what’s written in this book is based in groundless assumption.”_ )

He tries to push the sudden thought away, but finds that he can’t. “Just once,” he murmurs, half to himself and half to the ghost of a memory that has never quite faded, “you’re going to be wrong about something.”

“You’ve been wrong more than once, Simon.”

The tone is so wry, the words so deliberately misunderstanding, that for one irrational moment, Simon is certain that it’s the memory of his sister, whole – not the broken reality – speaking to him. Then he realizes that River must have awakened while he’d been turned away, and guessing that it’s one of her better days, he swings around—

There’s an old myth, a saying from Earth-that-was: the eyes are the window to the soul. Simon has never before put any thought into it – he’s a student of science, not religion – but suddenly the sentiment is flashing, quite horribly, through his mind. Because the small, inanely amused smile that curves around his sister’s lips is familiar, but her eyes, for the moment dull and almost dead, are anything but.  
 _  
As if she were nothing but a stranger wearing my sister’s face._

The thought dances across his mind, unbidden, and Simon tries to stamp it out, but it’s already too late. It’s always been far too late.

River jerks to her feet, and her eyes are no longer empty, but wide and horrified. There’s no grace, no fluidity to her movements as she lurches away from him, hands braced against the wall behind her for support. Gone is the brilliant dancer he still remembers.

Simon takes one frantic step towards her, but she throws her arm out before her to ward him away. “Don’t look at me!” she insists shrilly. “Don’t look at me if you’re only going to see _other_ threads, already long woven into the pattern or… or _hidden_ away where you can’t reach it!”

And she pauses, gasping for breath, her eyes darting manically around the room before they focus intently upon Simon. “And you _can’t touch it_. You can’t touch it, Simon, can you?”

For a moment, he can only sputter. “I… I, um… _Calm down_ , River,” he finally manages. “Calm down.” Cautiously, he makes his way towards her, arms outstretched in front of him as if she were some wild creature that might spook and flee at any sudden movement. Some wild creature that, through patience and careful attentiveness, might still be tamed.

If only it were that simple.

River’s breathing begins to slow down, but her eyes remain pinned on Simon, blindly panicked. “Calm…” she repeats brokenly, as if she’s forgotten the meaning of the word. “River? Is that who I am?”

“River was… River _felt_ _different_ , like unfiltered sunlight, or… or…” She hesitates, confused, and then whispers, “It’s becoming difficult to remember.

“Is that who I am?” she asks again, and the tension leaves her body. Simon takes this opportunity to close the distance between them, wrapping his sister in his arms. She’s so small, so seemingly fragile like this that it’s a miracle she’s survived so much.

“Of course you are,” he murmurs soothingly, and this time no stray thought enters his mind.

River is limp against him, her voice strangely empty when she finally speaks. “No, I’m _not_ ,” she whispers, her eyes flickering up to meet his own.

“If every piece of the ship has been replaced, does it still remain the same ship? No. Impossible. Illogical. What is essence but a… fanciful dream? _Identity_. Such a small thing to mean so much, so hard to pin down. So many questions, but no answers _at all_. If the inherent properties no longer apply, is it still _what it is_?”

And she begins to tremble, and whoever she may now be, whatever might be left of her, Simon still knows her well enough to realize that she’s crying. “I’m… so _broken_ , Simon. What _am_ I?”

“You’re my sister,” he says with utter conviction, as if that, in the face of doubt and logic and reality itself, his certainty will just this once be enough.

“You don’t believe that,” River accuses softly, weakly trying to pull away.

Ironic, that a man defined by his intelligence could be so betrayed by his _mind_ – that a single stray thought could cause so much pain.

“Sometimes… sometimes it’s hard to see,” Simon admits; there can be nothing but complete honesty between them. “But it’s still the truth. You prove it every time you speak, River. I can still hear the echoes of the little girl you once were.” He smiles, and he presses his lips lightly against her forehead. “And someday we’ll figure out how to fix you.”

River glances away. She tries to smile, but it comes out wrong, twisted, broken. “You don’t believe that either,” she tells him.

Simon sighs. Despite his chosen profession, he knows that some things can never be healed. Some goals are impossible; some dreams too distant to ever be reached. “No,” he admits quietly, “but even if the last option fails us, I’ll continue to try. I will _never_ give up on you, River. It’s not even a matter of hope anymore.”

His hands shift to her shoulders, and his eyes, calm and infinitely resolute, find hers. “And cure or no cure, River, nothing will ever change between us.”


End file.
